There is also the unspeakable visions of the seer in 85. Was there any previous mention of Trelawney and her vision-clock or am I just remembering before the update?
BenLowell
Karma: 370
I find that I don’t have good habits for using, just like I don’t have good habits for very many other things. I’m only likely to use a hack if I was reading about it earlier and then remembered to try it within a few days. I would probably try it with mild success, maybe using it every once in a while.
For me, forming habits (beeminder) is the most important hack I use.
No. :)
I am just dipping my toe into productivity porn—most productivity pornography that I’ve seen assumes a higher level of organization/habit than I have (Beeminder doesn’t assume that) so I haven’t bothered at trying any advanced techniques. I do have a strong desire that information be much more organized and consolidated that it usually is. I have a dream that someday I’ll be able to get books in certain fields that are like lists of facts, with collapsed context/deeper explanations and evidence for the facts.
With regards to blogs, and productivity blogs, it isn’t really possible since people are writing new information, but I would like to see 1 huge article that “has everything” just summarized, with links or collapsed details.
Currently, it’s really difficult to “skim” many different long blog articles and pick out what is different, what’s good, what is repeated on another site, etc. I like lists of single sentences/short words with no little to no context.
Thanks for the links!
I would be very grateful if someone wrote an article summarizing all of the different methods of getting organized and learning to do so, with links to all of those various productivity blogs.
Note, shoe size correlates with height, which correlates with income and iq.
I’ve been reading about muggle prison conditions lately, and while I’ve understood that “prison conditions are terrible and torturing people is pointless etc” for both systems, it did not occur to me that you were making a commentary.
I often wonder whether I should switch fields from physics to education, just because it seems so easy to make an impact.
Spaced repetition is great, but doesn’t necessarily mean anki and flash cards. For chemistry, this could mean doing reactions / stoichiometry along with naming, in a spaced, repetitious fashion. Flash cards/anki would work well for knowing specific compounds though.
It seems like some of his ideas are similar to those of Judith Rich Harris who wrote a book on how parents don’t seem to have much of an effect on the personality of their kids.
An article can be found here: Where is the Child’s Environment? A Group Socialization Theory of Development
I’ve started building a diode laser cavity (a box you shine a laser into which makes it have a more precise color), which means that I’ve been buying parts and spending lots of time in a machine shop. Most of what I’ll be doing in the coming months will be using a mill to cut out various sized chunks of aluminum.
I’ve also been helping organize a conference.
Personal wise, I’ve been trying to pay attention to my mood and emotions more by keeping records.
I have difficulty recognizing emotions. I tend to categorize them as physical feelings, such as a certain tightness to the stomach, or between the ribs. I’ve come to associate these with commonly known emotions, since some of them correlate with thoughts making them easier to pinpoint, but sometimes I have specific feelings and I don’t know if it is a known emotion or not.
It is pretty rare that I don’t know what I’m feeling, but I have a record of the first time I felt intense jealousy/anger/stress, and I wrote about “hot skin, wide eyes, a burning feeling on my chest like a rash, and tightness between the shoulders” and my thoughts before I realized the name for what was happening.
I don’t necessarily see a larger amount of people on Less Wrong who suffer from akrasia. It seem to me like more people identify their procrastinating as akrasia and see it as problem that can fix if they try harder or find the right tools.. As a student, I hear others/myself complaining about how they didn’t have the willpower to complete their homework, or wishing for better time management skills, or that they didn’t give in to playing video games/the internet. No-one uses the word ‘akrasia’ though, and many do search for solutions.
When I moved to a larger city with a larger homeless/begging/random street solicitor population, it took me a while to learn the methods of avoidance. I usually like to smile and look people in the eyes when I walk around (at least on a good day) but I find that solicitors—who are looking for that brief emotional connection, are much harder to turn down if I meet their face directly. It took me multiple times of feeling bad before I was able to overcome giving money/listening to somebody’s life story/religious ideas. Now I have crowd-scanning-Mormon-avoidance paths similar to most other people.
I found that many street beggars have a story, and if you give it any thought at all it doesn’t make any sense. I now have a ‘say no first’ policy and I figure that if I ever want to run after someone and hear what they have to say they won’t mind.
I recommend Spacetime Physics by Taylor and Wheeler for special relativity. This is a mathematical textbook however it only requires basic algebra and is accessible to highschool students.
Luke also has the advantage of that this is his job.
It is not uncommon for research articles to have 50+ references, and review articles often have over 300 references.
Edit: Luke’s articles do have way more than the usual number of references. This article has approximately 120 sentences, with 37 notes and about 150 references, which doesn’t make sense the way that I am familiar with. I am used to references referring to cited sources, and am not sure how Luke is using it. If it is a list of works consulted that makes sense.
Last time I said:
So, I’ve started writing an article related to this in collaboration with another LWer. One of my goals is that like the idea of contributing content to the site. I was also curious, and I feel that the majority of my personal curiosity is satisfied, and finishing the project by communicating what I learned to others is what is being difficult. There are several reasons for this. One is that I can always learn more, and make a better article. I’ve also realized this is a lower priority than my school/work activities, so it keeps being put off.
Whether or not to keep working on this (the topic was physical intuition) is something I have been discussing w/ other Seattle LWers. I wrote a summary recently, which made writing a paper seem less daunting. However, it also revealed tons of gaps in my research which I had filled in with speculation. I got a book to read. I am still putting this at low priority over schoolwork, especially now that school has started.
I was a summer camp counselor for a gifted education camp, and many of the kids there are quite lonely, so I am writing an article about keeping in touch with the friends they made there.
Wrote an article, never finished it because I was too lazy to edit it. Probably wouldn’t be that much effort to actually finish.
I have an incomplete in a class, and I have the final paper about halfway done.
Yay. Wrote paper. Now to get prof to change grade.
Also more than halfway done with a report/presentation for work. Finished.
Separating work and socializing, so that I can do each more effectively. Allocating time for each.
Separating work and socializing is going ok—definitely better. With more, smaller chunks of good socializing, (rather than rare, long, exhausting periods) I feel better.
If I am working and my roommates come home and are being social, I try and make the decision to either go to my room, or to put down my books and talk, or at least recognize that I won’t be very productive and that is ok.
I want to learn better ways of tearing myself away from a crappy/less interesting situation and dismissing myself while keeping on good social terms. Sometimes I am torn in the middle. Usually with television—it catches my attention and I don’t commit to watching or leaving to go do something else and ignore it.
I’m starting to exercise more. I used to just run, and only sometimes. I’ve been doing some non-weights exercises pretty often. Part of this is focused on posture, but otherwise pretty general. I’m getting better at paying attention to when exercising would feel fun, and I am surprised that I have the right energy level to do something at least at some point almost every day.
Everything else I’ve been doing is just school stuff.
Does anybody specifically recall the opposite case?
I feel like a fitting conclusion would be for Voldemort’s last remnant to end up on the Voyager spacecraft, so that he is forever in the stars, away from earth.
Chapter 78
I have some questions on Snape: In an earlier chapter during a conversation with Harry Snape says, “and what your mother saw in him was something I never did understand until this day.” Does anybody know what this is? I find it implausible that Snape had not considered that Lily was more likely to forgive James for being rich and handsome.
In the new chapter he mentions his two mentors. I am thinking the first mentor was Voldemort, who would not have mentioned missed perspectives as he was not out to make his death eaters better at their jobs, or better at finding his weaknesses. However, I was still confused as to why Dumbledore would have a specific reason for not enlightening him. Perhaps Snape assumes that nobody would trust his wretched self, and that he too hopeful to even think they could.
I was wondering if anybody else had any ideas on these two things.
I would write down your beliefs about working, and then analyze them. The goal should be to identify false and unhelpful beliefs and then find things that you can replace them with. Your basic beliefs about how the working world works will be a much better psychology base for other skills like beating procrastination or improving willpower. Read books or listen to things that will replace your old beliefs.
One thing that is an important part of procrastination is anxiety that is often related to feeling like your work is part of your self-worth, and so by not working you feel bad.
If you aren’t getting anywhere, then you may want to allow yourself to read some procrastination/self help books. For me back when I was depressed at one point I thought “hey, if I’m not going to do anything but sit in my room and watch videos, I guess I’ll watch these positive psychology videos”. That was a pretty awesome choice. Summaries that other’s have posted are good for references, but I get much more out of reading books, where I have more time to make connections and figure out how something would fit into my life.
Also, pay a visit to a counselor, or get a free consultation (E.Y’s partner Erin does productivity related counseling). Since you are in school this is probably cheap, and a good counselor is worth quite a bit.